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Secret is the poster child for "jerk tech", as it lets everyone become jerks. Sex shaming, std outing, lies, deceit, etc are all bottom barrel stuff. When thinking about startups, I prefer to ask "Should this exist?". Obviously not. Secret does not improve a single life. It only traps people in with their emotional desire for gossip.

This is exactly the reason we stopped working on Qraft.com: Airbnb for Recreational Toys. Insurance was impossible without going through strange unproven channels. The only option was to create our own insurance the way Airbnb did. We didn't want to do that. Also, don't forget what happened to Hi Gear.

Imagine if every time a journalist exposed our government secrets and some politician called to limit the 1st amendment. I would think you would use everything in your power as a journalist to protect your freedom of speech. It's no different for those who believe in the 2nd amendment. You don't get to pick and choose which part of the Bill of Rights you want to protect. They are interrelated.

What is the rallying cry for the NRA? "From my cold dead hands!" by Charlton Heston. The issue most liberals don't understand is that people who defend the 2nd amendment are willing to die to protect their rights. Are liberals willing to die to take them? Most likely not.

PS: At least one of your main investors in also an investor in a gun manufacturer. I challenge you to find out who.

"Rearden. He didn’t invent smelting and chemistry and air compression. He couldn’t have invented his Metal but for thousands and thousands of other people. His Metal! Why does he think it’s his? Why does he think it’s his invention? Everybody uses the work of everybody else. Nobody ever invents anything.” She said, puzzled, “But the iron ore and all those other things were there all the time. Why didn’t anybody else make that Metal, but Mr. Rearden did?”

@DonDodge I agree wholeheartedly. It is class warfare at it's finest and hints at his collectivist philosophy. The argument that individuals are powerless and owe the credit of their success to the collective falls flat on its face. You cannot put hurdles in my way and expect me to give you credit when I finally reach the finish line.

If the government gets the credit for my success...who gets the credit for my failure?

I believe it's worth asking how the founding fathers would have designed our constitution if they had the technology that we have at our disposal. Voting is an ancient process that is predictable and hackable by the established political and financial powers. Some argue that it's a broken process. If someone wants to truly disrupt the political system, they must think bigger than collecting people's voting habits and grouping them together. That is a very simplistic view on the political system. True disruption will occur when a new way to hold politicians & governments accountable is created. We have the power to do this...we just haven't discovered how to do it right yet.

Does the KONY movement hold any answers? What about the Arab Spring? SOPA anyone? Things are definitely being disrupted in a way never seen before in history, but is there a proper way to achieve rational & peaceful disruption using the new tools at our disposal?

Great post Sarah. Accel is smart to look outside the valley for awesome companies. These are businesses that have effectively starved their way to the top and are scrappy enough to build something valuable. Good luck to LightSpeed.

Dark ages? People have been trying to make this happen for years. I've been one of them. In 2007 (5 years ago) I was offering free wordpress templates for agents...very few takers at the time. This isn't something new. I'm shocked to see it on Pando Daily. Don't believe all the hype you get from startups please. Especially if they are already public companies.

I have been thinking this for the past year or more. An MBA can knock doors down for startups that no engineer ever could. The valley seems to be placing a lot of stereotypes on people based on their schooling, the clothes they wear, etc...and not on their level of competence or experience. In the end we are all entrepreneurs and you can never really know how capable we are until you see our work instead of our resume.

Nabeel... very insightful post. Anyone who's ever made significant money has done so by leveraging a new technology of some kind. The FB Open Graph is exactly that. Just as Google, iPhone, App Store, etc. were. However, first a business must create value that consumers actually want and are willing to pay for...then leverage the technology. Value first...leverage technology second.

Sarah, I'd love to hear more big picture visions from industry leaders. I don't get excited about social media or apps or some new metric that company X reached. I get excited about big visions and the future. That is what startup discussions should be about. Not how to think small today...but how to think BIG for the future.

My ex applied to the show and the meat of the application process was based on personal life...not entrepreneurship. Questions like "Have you ever fought a friend over the same guy?". After some thought, she realized it wasn't about silicon valley at all, but rather the personal drama surrounding the tech space. She eventually decided not to do it...but it was interesting to get a preview of what they wanted for the show. It's just LA trying to impose their stupidity on Silicon Valley.